2

INTRODUCTION: WHY YOUR AGENCY NEEDS TO THINK SMARTER AND ACT FASTER

Here’s the thing about marketing nowadays: it moves fast. Technology continues to disrupt our culture, the way we communicate, and the way we absorb information. As marketers, our ability to reach consumers and achieve results relies on our speed and agility.

The marketing industry is already being redefined, making way for agencies that possess tech-savvy talent, a dedication to providing integrated services, and the ability to think and act fast. Agencies that don’t adapt their services to meet the demands of timely and culturally-relevant inbound marketing will simply get left behind.

To illustrate, let’s take a look at what goes into noteworthy marketing like the 2012 Oreo Daily Twist campaign.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Oreo cookies, parent company Kraft Foods and four agencies (DraftFCB, 360i, Weber Shandwick, and MediaVest) collaborated to create a 100-day stream of individual pieces of content representing current events and celebrations such as Talk Like a Pirate Day, gay pride, and the Mars Rover landing. The goal of the campaign was to cement Oreo’s relevance in today’s society. To tie culture and news to the product, each “Daily Twist” ad was illustrated using Oreos, and every one of them was executed extraordinarily well.

While some illustrations were predetermined, most were produced day of. For 100 days, every morning started with reading the news, followed by quickly getting to work on a design in real-time response to what was happening in the world. “The level of collaboration and creativity [was] second to none,” said Gabe Alonso, a Content Manager at 360i.

Just two months into the campaign, interaction on the Oreo Facebook page (likes, comments and shares) had increased an average of 110% from before launch. And as if the creativity and collaboration behind the first 99 ads wasn’t impressive enough, the campaign concluded with the launch of a pop-up design shop in Times Square to crowdsource the final illustration and give the world a peek into the behind-the-scenes creative process. It’s this newsroom approach to content creation that enables marketing departments to create marketing worth sharing.

Deciding to be an agile agency isn’t a flip-of-the-switch decision, though. It requires support from leadership, streamlined processes, and a toolset that facilitates openness, collaboration, and accessibility to shared knowledge. That’s why we’ve put together this ebook -- to help familiarize you with some of the cloud-based technologies your agency could be using (if not already) to improve creativity, efficiency and productivity.

Read on to learn more about: • File sharing and collaboration tools that will allow your agency to get work done faster• Social networking tools that foster company culture and enable cross-team collaboration• Easy-to-use administrative tools that handle time tracking, billing and project management• Tools that simplify sales, marketing and content management processes• Miscellaneous tools that save you time and headaches so you can spend less time managing your email inbox and more time devising strategic ideas that deliver results and strengthen your relationship with clients.

FILE SHARING AND COLLABORATION

3

1

4

WHAT IS IT?

Are you the kind of person who stays on top of things by affixing Post-it notes to your computer monitor? Do you have a hard time finding important meeting notes in between all the other chicken scratch in your Moleskine? Do your best ideas strike when there’s no pen or paper in sight? Evernote helps with all of the above.

With Evernote, you can capture, organize and access your thoughts and information anytime, anywhere, and from nearly any device. Since Evernote can read text within images, you can even snap a photo of existing notes and easily find them later.

Evernote also allows you to save searchable information to share your in virtual notebooks with others, or even with your entire team or agency with Evernote Business. HOW COULD I USE IT?

immediately stored in never-ending virtual notebooks.4. Stay up-to-date on the inbound marketing

industry with ease using Evernote Clearly. With a click of a button, all distracting ads and fluff from a webpage disappears so you can focus on the blog post at hand.

5. While reading or researching for an upcoming campaign, capture important excerpts from or entire web pages using Evernote’s Web Clipper.

6. Use Evernote Hello to remember new potential clients or important client interactions.

How much does it cost?Individual use: freeIndividual Premium use: $5.00/month or $45.00/yearEvernote Business: $10/user/month

1. Create a notebook for each client to keep track of business goals, campaign ideas, meeting notes, or project research. Consider sharing it with coworkers and allowing them to contribute using Shared Notebooks.

2. Create Shared Notebooks for clients and. Capture clips from web articles they might like, ideas for upcoming meetings, or links to online content that makes their job easier.

3. If you find it easier to handwrite meeting notes, get Evernote’s Penultimate app for iPad to have your scribbles

2

5

WHAT IS IT?

Dropbox is a cloud-based, shareable hard drive. With Dropbox, you can sync files, photos, videos and projects saved on your work computer to your personal laptop or vice versa. When you make a change to a file, the previous version is automatically updated in Dropbox so you’re accessing the latest version no matter whether you view from your iPhone or PC. If you want to revert to a previous version or undelete a file, you can.

With Dropbox for Teams, your entire agency can also share folders internally or with external clients or contacts, all while maintaining administrative control.

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Instead of attaching scopes of work, project files or deliverables to emails, simply include a link to a Dropbox file or folder.

2. If your agency has multiple offices, use Dropbox to sync important files and folders across offices and geographies.

3. Create folders by department or project to ensure that sub folders are automatically shared with the right people.

4. Forget having to email files to yourself if you need to finish a project after you leave the office. Dropbox gives you access to the exact version of what you were working on before you walked out the door.

How much does it cost? Individual use: free up to 2GB of storageTeam use: starts at $795/year for 5 users with unlimited storage

INTERNAL SOCIAL NETWORKS

6

3

7

WHAT IS IT?

Yammer is an enterprise social network provider that is now part of Microsoft’s Office Division.

Here’s how they describe themselves: “Yammer empowers employees to be more productive and successful by enabling them to collaborate easily, make smarter decisions faster, and self-organize into teams to take on any business challenge. It is a new way of working that naturally drives business alignment and agility, reduces cycle times, engages employees and improves relationships with customers and partners.”

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Organize meetings and events, share them with coworkers, and gauge attendance by collecting responses. Add events to your email calendar.

2. Visualize your agency’s org chart so you know who manages or reports to whom.

3. Associate expertise with user profiles so employees know who to contact internally on a particular subject matter.

And, as you would with Chatter:4. Create groups dedicated to specific clients to

house all campaign or content ideas, reports, project milestones, and feedback from account teams.

5. Exchange timely links or resources to help your agency stay informed on the latest client-specific industry shifts or digital marketing trends.

6. Nurture career growth & personal development by allowing employees from different teams to mentor one another.

7. Search, access and reuse creative work and great ideas to repurpose in new markets or for other clients.

How much does it cost?Basic Yammer for everyone in your agency: freeYammer Enterprise: starts at $3/user/monthYammer Enterprise with Office 365: starts at $8/user/month

PROJECT MANAGEMENT, TIME TRACKING & ADMINISTRATION

8

4

9

WHAT IS IT?

Basecamp is a simple project management platform that allows you to centralize all communications, files, presentations, resources, meeting notes and to-dos in one place. You can easily track and assign project milestones, and even keep track of all your projects and progress via your mobile device.

Since Basecamp doesn’t price by number of users, everyone involved in a project can access the platform to work together. You control who sees which project and who sees each other, and you can also create groups to keep people organized based on their involvement with a particular project. (ex: “event planners” vs. “writers” vs. "marketing team").

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Use Basecamp’s Discussion feature to keep track of all back-and-forth communication: content suggestions, design feedback, etc. Reply to discussions via email so you don’t even have to spend time logging in.

2. Plug in everyone’s schedule into the Basecamp calendar so you know when team members are available to meet.

3. Plug in all project milestones and due dates into the calendar to keep everyone on track and provide an at-a-glance view of the agency’s comprehensive workload.

4. Use the calendar to keep track of each client’s content marketing editorial calendars so clients and account teams know what will be published when.

5. View projects and tasks assigned to particular employees and adjust to-dos between overloaded and underutilized resources.

How much does it cost? Starts at $20/month for 10 projects and unlimited users with 3GB storage$150/month for unlimited projects, unlimited users and 100 GB storage

5

10

WHAT IS IT?

ActiveCollab is another easy-to-use project management system that also includes the ability to create invoices and manage time.

With ActiveCollab, you can access projects by searching or filtering by client, label, assignee, status and more; break bigger tasks into sub-tasks; view all changes in a documented project history; and see what work still needs to be completed using the visual project timeline. Easily drag and drop milestones to adjust due dates and priorities.

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Not all project management has to happen within activeCollab: create new tasks and import files by sending an email to activeCollab.

2. Enable clients to submit project requests to activeCollab that you and your team can review, accept and assign.

3. Create quotes for new projects and mark them as “won” or “lost.” If won, you can import client contact information and launch a new project based on the quote details.

4. Filter tracked time by billable vs. non billable to then populate a new invoice.

How much does it cost? Small business use with unlimited users: $249/monthCorporate use with unlimited users (include time tracking and invoicing features): $399/month

6

11

WHAT IS IT?

Intervals is web-based project management software that couples time tracking, task management and reporting so you can find out where time is being spent in order to adjust priorities.

In Intervals’ words, the platform is all “about getting work done, empowering your workers to have every piece of information they need to work efficiently, tracking that work, communicating openly with clients, having real-time status of what's going on, and get meaningful reporting from the whole cycle.”

HOW COULD I USE IT?

Use a built-in timer or manually plug in time spent on your projects.Accompany task instructions with any additional files needed to get a project done, like website copy, images, drawings, etc.Track evolving iterations of documents over time, and revert to a previous version if you don’t like the latest changes.Use the reporting capabilities to find answers to questions like:

Which clients are spending the most time on? Which clients to we need to bill Is it time to hire someone? Should we be adjusting our hourly rate?

How much does it cost? 40 projects, unlimited users and 15GB storage: $50/monthUnlimited projects, unlimited users and 75GB storage: $150/month

CONTENT SOURCING, CREATION & MANAGEMENT

12

7

13

WHAT IS IT?

Just because your agency is limited on in-house writers doesn’t mean you have to forego content marketing services.

Zerys is a content marketing and project management platform that connects agencies with qualified writers looking for opportunities to create content on behalf of your clients.

Post writing jobs, sample writers based on their expertise in your clients’ industries until you find ones you like, negotiate rates, then review and publish their work.

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Create a simple questionnaire for clients to get their input on project details, and use that to create a job telling writers what you want them to create.

2. Populate a large volume of content on client blogs much faster than internal resources could produce it all.

3. Add your own agency writers into the system or use the Zerys writer marketplace to find the right writer for the project.

4. Send keywords, titles or entire posts to clients to review and approve. White label Zerys so clients can log in and never know the platform wasn’t built by your agency.

5. Provide feedback or reject content that’s not up to par with your needs.

6. Export completed content to publish on your own, or auto publish to WordPress or HubSpot.

How much does it cost? Pricing is based on a per-word rate that you choose, ranging from $0.01 to $0.20 per word written.

8

14

WHAT IS IT?

The folks over at Contently are fired up about helping freelance journalists succeed and enabling anyone and everyone become a publisher. All of this passion has resulted in the two cloud-based solutions Contently offers: an editorial project management platform, and a marketplace that connects brands, agencies and other publishers with the talent who can turn content ideas into completed projects.

Using Contently, brands and agencies gain access to vetted writers, and writers gain access to self-promotional tools and visibility into how their content is performing across the web. It’s a win-win!

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Create and manage your entire editorial calendar in the Contently calendar, schedule publishing times and due dates.

2. Manage approvals, editing workflow, etc.3. Track all changes and versions within the

platform’s document editor. 4. Export completed content to publish on your own,

or auto publish to WordPress, HubSpot, Tumblr, or Typepad.

5. Organize writers into teams or groups according to client or project to streamline communications and tasks.

6. Enable payments through Contently to simplify freelance payment processing.

How much does it cost? Contently has not published their pricing, so you’ll have to request more information to find out what an average project costs.

MISCELLANEOUS HANDY TOOLS

15

9

16

WHAT IS IT?

The conversations you have with clients form the bedrock of your relationship, and often what strengthens those relationships are off-topic conversations about your dogs, families, and/or embarrassing moments. What if you could be more in-tune with your clients’ day-to-day with out having to call? Rapportive is the next best thing.

Rapportive lets you find out more about your email contacts by providing information about their social media activity right inside your Gmail inbox. You can see where they live, what they do, what they’re up to, and connect with them on various social networks all within the right-hand panel.

In your next conversation, you can say, “Hey, I saw you were at my favorite restaurant in Boston!” instead of a routine, “How’s it going?”

How much does it cost? Free!

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Put a face to the name of incoming email from unknown contacts.

2. Use recent tweets, LinkedIn profile data, and other information to find a common ground you share, and personalize your communications accordingly.

3. Follow contacts on various social channels without leaving your inbox and getting distracted.

4. Leave notes about recent conversations or things you want to mention at a later date, all within the user’s Rapportive profile.

10

17

WHAT IS IT?

Need to resize a Facebook Timeline cover photo? Does the client want a blog image cropped before publishing? Some of these requests shouldn’t have to be routed to the design team for completion, yet not every employee needs their own copy of Photoshop.

Enter Pixlr, a web-based, desktop and mobile photo editing tool that gives account managers and social media practitioners the ability to create and edit compelling images without having to jump through unnecessary hoops that end up costing your agency a lot of time and money.

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Remove redeye, whiten teeth, crop, and add effects to images for use in agency or client Facebook page updates, tweets, blog posts, ebooks and whitepapers.

2. Ensure images are sized appropriately for optimal viewing in all social networks.

3. Add Pixlr to Google Drive so you can open images from Google Drive, edit them, then save them back into Google Drive. 

4. Easily drag any image from any website to edit in Pixlr using the Chrome or Firefox extensions.

5. Get the Pixlr Express mobile app to capture and edit photos when you’re away from your desk.

How much does it cost? Pixlr Web-based Editor: Free!Pixlr Express: Free!Pixlr-o-Matic: Free!Pixlr Express Plus for iOS and Android: $0.99

11

18

WHAT IS IT?

Avoid the hassle of printing, signing, faxing, scanning or attaching documents to emails. It’s not the easiest nor the most efficient way to get those NDAs and scopes of work signed by your clients.

With DocuSign, you can upload the document you need signed, indicate where your client needs to place their signature and date, and send it off with a customized note. Once they’ve signed, you get an email notification so you know immediately when you can move forward on a project.

HOW COULD I USE IT?

1. Upload scopes of work, NDAs, and other signature-worthy documents to DocuSign, then send them off to clients or vendors for signing. Simultaneously improve visibility into the signing process, save money on paper and printing costs, reduce sales cycle times, and save your clients time.

2. Use DocuSign for Salesforce to pre-populate and send contracts to clients.

3. Have all new employees sign employee handbooks and other on-boarding documents using DocuSign.

4. Use DocuSign right inside of Microsoft Outlook.

How much does it cost? Individual use: free for 1 user and 5 signatures/monthProfessional: $15/user/month for 50 signatures/monthWorkgroup: $20/user/month for 2-200 users and unlimited signaturesEnterprise: Get a quote for unlimited signatures

19

CONCLUSION

A lot of what we've talked about all throughout this ebook is the importance of getting great work done faster. The Internet has leveled the playing field for non-traditional publishers, giving your agency the chance to make a mark for clients by way of creating download- and share-worthy content. On one side of the coin, this shift represents an opportunity. On the other, a threat: marketing agencies that can’t figure out how to provide digital service offerings and cope with the rate at which content has to be created nowadays will continue to be disrupted.

When it comes to getting more done quicker, your agency can’t rely on recruiting robots to churn out blog posts, display ads, or professional photos. Instead, however, you can make a difference in productivity by removing a lot of administrative and communication hurdles that get in the way of reaching a finish line.

Eleven tools later, we’ve discussed newer and more efficient ways of sharing files, working in teams, getting feedback, accessing information, and managing the sales, marketing and content creation processes. We hope by now you’ve discovered at least a few tools you can add to your own personal tool belt to make life a little easier, or found something you can introduce to your team. Regardless of which tools you choose to implement for your agency, remember to make sure they fit existing workflows instead of having to adapt your workflows to fit the tool.

Want to take a deeper dive and learn about some additional tools

>>Download the entire ebook from HubSpot!